Boss Dave Challinor was pleased with his team’s second-half performance as Stockport kept themselves in the top six in League One by beating Exeter 2-0 at Edgeley Park.
The Hatters had to be patient as both teams struggled to get a hold of the blustery conditions but they found their breakthrough on 67 minutes when Tristan Crama put through his own goal.
Louie Barry, the division’s top scorer with 14 goals, then added a second in the closing stages, with the on-loan Aston Villa forward coolly converting his penalty, having won the spot-kick.
“I thought our second-half performance was really good,” said Challinor.
“In terms of functionality, we played in the right areas and controlled territory even though the wind was against us so I’m delighted with the three points.
“You don’t want the game to be affected by what the weather looks like but it makes it different and you’re expecting mistakes and certainly the first goal we scored comes from a mistake.
“We managed the conditions well, though, and in the second half we decided we were going to try and play in their half of the pitch and make them defend and I think we did that brilliantly.
“The chances we did get in the first half were from forcing them into mistakes and in the second half we stopped them playing in front of us. Even though our goals did come a little late, you did feel it was a fair scoreline.”
Exeter boss Gary Caldwell was frustrated his side couldn’t kick on after the break after holding Stockport in the opening stages.
The former Scotland international cited a lack of cutting edge from his Grecians as they mustered just three shots during the contest and lost ground in pursuit of the play-offs.
“I was really disappointed and I felt like we threw the game away in that second half,” said Caldwell.
“I thought first half against the wind we were extremely brave and played the game the way we wanted it to be played and limited them to very little.
“When we got through, we don’t do enough. We don’t create enough chances or get enough shots in on goal from the good play and I felt like in the second half, with the wind, we could take the game to them and really go for it.
“We didn’t have the same quality in our pass and didn’t build as well as we could have and we threw a game away that we’re very much in at half-time.
“Second half, we were shooting with the wind and knew we had good finishers on the bench that could have come on and tried to win the game but it just didn’t happen.”
